On Inspectors and Their Sergeants
by noenigma
Summary: A character piece following the events in "Life Born of Fire" and recalling the Inspector Morse episode "The Way Through The Woods"


Notes: Though I've loved Morse and Lewis for years, this is my first fanfic featuring either of them. I didn't feel at all up to the task of writing anything sounding even remotely like Lewis. However, the parallels between these two episodes and their poignant, unbelievably sad and vivid ending scenes proved too much of a temptation…I hope I've done them justice.

Disclaimer: This is purely for fan purposes.

On Inspectors and their Sergeants

"You saved me," Hathaway said, and he was still feeling enough of the effects of the drug he'd been given to not hide how much that meant to him.

"Don't be so melodramatic," Lewis told him. He was a lot of things, but a hero was not one of them; no need to let his sergeant believe otherwise. He lifted a tired hand to rub his eye and ignored the pain the movement cost him. His right hip and shoulder were a mass of bruises where he'd been thrown to the ground by the blasts; his left shoulder, back, and thighs ached from carrying Hathaway down the stairs and out of the burning flat; his eyes, nose, throat, and lungs burned raw from the smoke and heat. He needed his bed, but there'd been all the papers to fill out, the press conference to survive, and Hathaway had taken his sweet time waking up. He'd grabbed the odd moment here and there to doze off at his desk back at the station and snoozed an hour or two in the hallway waiting for the lad to wake up. Bed would have done him no good until he knew Hathaway was all right.

Not physically. The doctors and sisters over his care had reassured him on that score from the beginning. And Hobson had been over to surreptitiously check up on their assessment of both he and Hathaway if he'd harbored any doubts. He hadn't; Hathaway was fine in that sense. The flames had never reached him. The drugs had slowed his breathing so much he'd inhaled far less of the smoke than Lewis himself, and they'd made him as floppy as a rag doll so he'd escaped the brunt of bruises and pains from being thrown to the ground by the concussive blasts. Aside from a few cuts and scrapes from the shattered glass and the drugs still working their way through his system, the lad was in perfect health.

Scrutinizing his sergeant's face, Lewis concluded that he was all right in other respects as well. Not unscathed or untouched by the grief, guilt, and horror of Will McEwen's case or his own close brush with death, but he'd survive. Older, wiser, both more and less vulnerable, hardened somewhere deep inside, weary, and warier, he'd come through. That was all better than it easily might have been, and Lewis was relieved to see it, but…

What the inspector had really needed to see, what he'd really needed to be reassured about before he could nip off to his own bed, he'd seen in that moment of realization right before Hathaway had said, "You saved me." More than just the reality and relief of finding himself alive when he should have been dead. The dawning understanding that it was Lewis who had saved him. After all their hard words and after all his lies, his governor had come back for him. That was what Lewis had needed to see, and now that he had, even though there was a lot more he might have said and a lot more he doubtlessly should have said, it was time for a good long kip. He barely said enough to get out the door.

He dreamed of Wytham Woods that night. The cold barrel of the gun, the colder eyes of the woman holding it, the dread certainty that he was looking at his death. The undeniable, hard, and bitter truth that there in the quiet and grandeur of the old forest, he was dead.

"No," he said, looking death in the eye and refusing to turn his back and let it come easily. He braced himself, preparing for one last, futile lunge because, even though it was hopeless, he would not go down without a fight. He couldn't. There was Val and the kids. His family, his life.

And there was Morse. Who would follow him to the Michaels' cottage, if not today, then some other. Who might himself walk blindly into shotgun range—no, no. Lewis may have run right into it without the slightest clue what he was up against, but he'd been careful too. No, not careful, he'd done the job proper-like. The chaps back at the nick knew where he'd gone. No one would walk unforewarned into her waiting sights after he got himself done in and never reported back. He didn't have to put up that last spark of resistance to save Morse, but to redeem him.

How could he give it up easily when all of his angry words and bitter accusations still echoed through the station hallways? When the pain of the hissed, defiant, "Well, perhaps it's just as well I'm leaving then, isn't it?" he'd thrown into the man's face still haunted them both? Dying with that between them, surely there could be no peace for either of them in that.

But, dying he was; could he see or just sense the tightening of her eyes as her finger tightened on the trigger? One desperate lunge and it would be over; he would be dead.

And, then, Morse's shout followed by one incredible instant of relief and, though his conscious mind never acknowledged it when he looked back at the memory, delight. Chief Inspector Morse had come. For him. To save him. Despite all the hate and frustration he'd spewed out at the man just a few hours before, his inspector had come for him.

The dream suspended him in the glory of that moment, and he was glad to stay there even with her finger still poised on the trigger and Michael's blood stiffening sickeningly against his chest. All the shouted accusations and built up frustrations that had welled up before and culminated in a decision he'd regretted even as he made it didn't keep him from knowing in that moment of suspended time that he wanted nothing to do with Johnson or his inspectorship.

He was happy to play second fiddle to Morse. He remembered the pride he'd felt when Morse had chosen him-Robbie Lewis, a simple, ordinary, Geordie lad far from home and way out of his league-to be his sergeant, and he was just as proud now as all those years before. He'd thought all the donkey-work, slights, insults, and unreciprocated rounds had slowly ebbed away his delight in being privileged to work with the very best, but, in that moment, he knew he'd only been fooling himself.

The lads down at the nick, the wife, the parents back home, they were the ones who thought he needed rank. And he wanted it himself, wanted to prove to them all and to himself that he wasn't just a lad off the streets of Newcastle, wanted the parking place, and the pay packet, wanted the knowledge that he'd provided for his far beyond anything his dad and granddad before him could have even dreamed. But, no rank, no pay increase, no anything would ever make him prouder than being asked to work with the best detective in all of the Thames Valley. He might be stuck in the limbo between the graduate entry officers who had started out miles ahead of him and kept right on going and those who had to be satisfied to never rise above DC or DS no matter how many years they served, but there was no shame in where he stood. He was bagman to the very best.

Chief Inspector Johnson wouldn't have made the leaps necessary to come to his rescue. He would have been too busy trying to prove all of his preconceived notions and get a leg up on Morse. Even if he did follow the right trail, he'd have been in no hurry to rush to Lewis' rescue. Johnson would have let him face whatever he found out there in the woods on his own to spite him for daring to oppose the arrogant get.

Morse though. He'd had more call to want to see Lewis suffer than Johnson ever would, but he'd come anyway. He'd made the leaps, he'd thrown aside his pet theories to follow Lewis into his, and there he was, in the woods, standing between his sergeant and death.

That moment of pure unadulterated relief, clarity, and hope had passed in a fraction of an instant back in the day, but it hovered indefinitely in his dream. Giving him time to recall the look of pride and approval on Morse's face when on the rare occasion Lewis managed to do everything right. Time to remember every, 'Lewis, you've done it again!' Time to recognize the terror that had sent Morse plunging into the forest without any backup in sight. Time to know that the chief inspector really had come after him-not a murderer, not just any colleague, but him. Lewis had never been as angry in his life, never meant anything more than he'd meant the words he'd shouted in Morse's face that very day, never felt any more wicked satisfaction than he did when he saw the pain in Morse's eyes when he told him he was leaving. Yet, even so, Morse was there for him.

Lewis groaned in his sleep as the moment finally came to an end, and the three of them, Morse, Lewis, and Mrs. Michaels, were plummeted back into the terrible eternity that followed it. He shook as the shot sounded through the woods, fighting to rise above sleep and back into the present, but there was only the silence following the blast, the cloying scent of blood and gunpowder, the weakness that took his feet out from under him and left him gasping for air as though he'd been under water far too long, and Morse's stunned face turned to him imploringly as though he could call back the blast and somehow restore the dead to life.

Lewis could hardly hold himself upright. He was utterly and totally unable to come to terms with all that had happened back at the forester's cottage, let alone there in the woods. In desperate need himself, he had nothing to give to the older man, least of all a miracle. It was he who needed everything from Morse. His assurance they really had survived and would continue to do so, physically and otherwise; his comforting, physical presence to still Lewis' shaking; his hand on his shoulder to hold him together and keep him from shattering.

He needed it all, but it was all more than Morse had to offer or give. It was Lewis who somehow managed to come to his feet, put his arm around the older man, and draw him out to the road. It was Lewis who made the call, led those who responded back out to the horrors which lay hidden amidst the trees, answered the questions, and stumbled through the reports. He was the one to stand beside Morse and offer words of comfort, his presence the one that held the shattered chief inspector together.

There was then-had been then, for finally he had risen to consciousness and now the incident was just a memory of a long past day-the briefest offer of comfort, an arm reached awkwardly around him in a halted almost-hug. Had it been enough? Had it washed him in warmth and reassurance wiping away the horror of the afternoon and forgiving him for the ugliness that had spewed out of him earlier? He couldn't remember.

It had been all he'd gotten in any case. Well, that and the lift home. The old man hadn't even offered to let him buy him a pint. Just left him off with a 'See you tomorrow then" and driven off without waiting to see his sergeant walk wearily through his front door too done in to give a thought to the fright he'd be giving his wife and children when they saw the blood on him. There had never been, not then and not in the years that followed, an acknowledgment or accounting for the words they'd spat at each other over the Karen Anderson case.

Lewis hadn't expected one from Morse. The man simply hadn't had it in him. Yet, he'd expected one from himself. Something that acknowledged he'd hurt the other man and deeply regretted it. He knew that Morse's response would have been to downplay the apology and the need for it, and Lewis would never have gotten to say what needed said anyway. But, still, he had thought he was man enough to try. And, yet, in this one instance, he'd let himself down. The enormity of his betrayal was beyond words. He'd been granted a place at Morse's side, and he'd spurned it, thrown it back in his face, and nothing he could say would ever erase the pain in the inspector's eyes when he did it.

He sat up with a groan. It was the same pain that had been in Hathaway's eyes when he'd told him to get away, to get out of his sight. He'd been right to be angry. With Morse all those years ago—after the Lord Mayor's show indeed—and with Hathaway and his lies. He hadn't been justified in the pummeling he'd given the both of them though. He could have left Morse years before if he didn't like being treated as something between a slave and a daft cousin; and he could—should—have taken Hathaway off the case before he'd even put him on it. Instead, he'd given them both enough rope to hang themselves, and then beaten them up for something neither of them had been capable of stopping.

He'd long before accepted that working with Hathaway carried with it a fair number of eerily familiar parallels to working with his chief inspector. Not in the way one might have expected, with Lewis playing the part of Morse and Hathaway that of his sergeant. No, in the end, Lewis was still playing the same old role; it was young Hathaway taking that of Morse. The lad lacked Morse's wild imaginative turn, it was true, but in all too many other ways, he was a perfect typecast for the introspective, brooding, somewhat socially awkward Morse.

That awkward arm around him out in Wytham Woods…had it been enough? And was his ugly mug standing at his sergeant's bedside enough?

He'd needed more from Morse out there in the terror of that afternoon; something the man had been incapable of giving. But, he'd had Val and the kids. They'd held him together in the aftermath of that nightmare and a good many others. Morse had had only Wagner, a bottle of Glendivich, and a sergeant who wasn't man enough to say what needed said. He'd deserved better.

And Hathaway? What did he have to get him through? Lewis couldn't say. All the time they'd spent together and he couldn't say. The lad knew everything to know about Lewis, his life was an open book. But Hathaway had given nothing away. There were the blokes in his band…but did they mean anything to Hathaway besides accompanying strings and harmony? There was the church, but did the man even wander through its doors to soak up its healing silence since he'd left the priesthood? Was there a girl somewhere to hold him while he cried? There were parents, Lewis had seen their names on the personnel forms, but did they figure anywhere in their son's life? To his shame, Lewis couldn't say. The man was as private as they came, a closed box. And Lewis had never cracked the lid to peek inside.

He stretched his aching back and shoulders still feeling the weight of the lad's body as he'd carried him from the fire. It had stayed with him, leaving an impression, like the weight of his daughter's tiny head lolling against his shoulder when she'd finally cried the colic out, and he'd held her as she slept through the rest of the night for fear the screams would begin all over again if he shifted her to her cot. But, he wasn't the lad's father, and the lad was a grown man. He wouldn't let Lewis coddle him even if he were willing to try.

There in Jericho, the flames sending flickering shadows over them, his lungs full of the thick smoke, his body screaming at the insult of being hurtled through the air and slammed painfully into the road, ears ringing from the blast, shattered glass biting into him, he'd thrown himself over Hathaway in an effort to protect him. He'd stayed there for a moment, fighting to hold onto his own wits and waiting for the firemen to come drag them out of harm's way, and without thought he'd brushed his hand over Hathaway's buzzed head in a gesture of comfort and reassurance.

He'd done the same for his lad that far ago Saturday when the boy had finally slunk in, still defiant and angry, his brown hair shaved off in rebellion against the dad who wasn't there often enough. He'd been ready for another fight, but Lewis, tired from a day that had begun far too early and gone on much too late yet determined to be more the father he wanted to be, had ignored the hair and the insult and manned up enough to apologize for—what? it hadn't been him who'd brought the teacher to tears or insulted his old man—still he'd said what needed said, been what he needed to be, and afterwards, while his son cried on his shoulder he'd brushed his hand over his shorn head. It hadn't been hard. It had been natural. Part of the job.

But, Hathaway wasn't his lad. He was his sergeant, and for all he'd wanted to reach out and ruffle his head or pat him on the shoulder before he'd walked out of that hospital room the evening before, he hadn't. It wasn't Lewis' job to nurse him through the rough patches.

Not his job at all. But he had needed that himself, out there in the woods. Morse hadn't been able to meet that need; perhaps he'd never even seen it. But, Lewis…well, he'd been there, hadn't he? He knew what the lad needed even if he didn't himself.

After something like that, a man needed someone to reach out and pull him close, to hold onto him until the shakes passed. And then someone to heat the kettle and doctor the tea with a good big dollop of brandy and watch over him until he'd downed the last drop and finally, thankfully, passed into oblivion for the moment knowing when he woke up someone would be there to do it all over again.

It wasn't his job to be that someone for Hathaway. But…he'd never been one to only do the job. Always push that little bit more, give that little bit more, and diligence and perseverance like that had earned him Morse's notice and went a long way (along with a thick hide and deep pockets) towards keeping him by the Chief Inspector's side for so many years. He'd had the sticking power and the guts for the job, but, even so, he'd been lucky, privileged even, to be there. Morse had been the best there was, or, as far as Lewis could fathom, ever would be. Yet, there'd been a price to pay to be his sergeant. Quite a lot of the time, Lewis had paid it happily, eagerly even.

But, that day in the woods. When he'd been the one to have to be strong when he couldn't even stand on his own two feet. He'd needed Morse that day, and Morse-the man who had saved him from certain death there in the woods, the man who'd looked down the same barrel, faced the same bullet, the one who'd been there when Lewis needed him most-had failed to be there for him when it came time to pick up the shattered pieces. He'd saved his sergeant that day, but he'd also failed him in not turning that half-way hug into a strengthening embrace and in not saying, "It's all right, Robbie. We both said things we shouldn't have, but that's behind us now. We're alive, and we're all right."

Lewis sighed and began to fumble for his clothes. He wasn't half the detective Chief Inspector Morse had been, nor could he hope to be. But, in this one respect, at least, perhaps he could be the better man. He'd failed to ever find the words to apologize for his betrayal of Morse, but he wouldn't fail to find the words to absolve Hathaway of his. He'd sit in the hall outside of that hospital room through the night, and in the morning, when he drove Hathaway to his flat…he'd say what needed said and he'd be what he needed to be to give Hathaway what he needed to get him through.

And maybe, if he did it right, one day, some young sergeant would get what he needed from Inspector Hathaway instead of a bottle of booze and whatever would pass for music in his day.


End file.
